Derf:
Winseer:
The problem with “pleading guilty” is that it takes advantage of someone feeling bad after an accident that may well have not been their fault.
Once the guilty plea is in, they can have all kinds of other accusations thrown at them.
Best to let a Jury find you guilty of something, and leave it to them as to what exactly.
I wouldn’t want to get a 2 year ban from driving and a £1200 fine because some idiot jumped off a bridge under the truck wheels - like happened to someone I knew.
Q: Are you guilty or not guilty of running over that person prone on the ground?
A: Guilty.
Doh!
Doya think he was hard done by? He could even have argued that he ran over a carcass, and not a living person who wanted to stay alive at all! 
Utter tosh!
It’s often months after being charged that one goes to court to enter a plea. As far as I’m aware there is no actual offence of which you state above, the accused would be asked to enter a plea for causing death by dangerous driving which going by the circs as you describe would;
a) warrant a not guilty plea
b) fall outside the 51% chance of a conviction and so would be dropped by the CPS before trial
Insurance companies like to say “Never admit liability, even if you’re bang to rights” - but this is actually constitutes ‘obstructing justice’ - regardless of what anyone says. If I were a Juror and some git was before me who’d denied everything, even when all the evidence says otherwise, then I’d not hesitate to make the other jurors aware (in case they are too thick to understand the evidence) what the score was.
Lying to the police becomes perjury once it gets repeated by the accused in court - assuming of course the accused doesn’t decide to retract the false statement, and plead guilty at the last minute - which does happen sometimes.
It is sad that cases with less than a 51% chance of conviction get dropped, which means any murdering scumbag can get away scot-free IF they deny everything from the start, regardless of how much camera footage, eye witness statements, and forensic evidence points to the contrary.
Personally, I reckon justice would be better served if the accused were not allowed to lie in their defence (by not letting them take the stand in the first place!), nor anyone else they know. Since the world is fast filling up with atheists these days, perjury holds no fear of eternal damnation as once it did. Friends, family, and the accused themselves will lie through their teeth in courts, and the system will often be unable to convict anyone of anything because of these lies flying in the face of “bystander” evidence, which isn’t always forthcoming. Mob justice - intimidation from the defendant’s supporters - should have no place in the justice system, but all too often it does. If 50 ruffians support their brudder in the dock and only a handful of ordinary folk, perhaps old dears, bore witness to the defendant kicking someone’s head in following a road rage incident for example, then guess who’s going to get let off scot-free once those witnesses don’t turn up to testify? The jury won’t get chance to find someone guilty anyway - they will be dismissed or directed by the judge to bring in a “not guilty” verdict, because the prosecution’s case has “collapsed”…
If the police ask the wrong questions of a “suspect” at the original scene, then anyone and everyone is going to be wide open to serious miscarriages of justice. Bang to rights criminals could be let free because they’ve “denied everything”, and hand-wringing chumps in the wrong place at the wrong time get the book thrown at them, because they answered an awkward question from plod in the affirmative, which gets them arrested and remanded in custody on the spot. THIS is what I refer to as “pleading guilty” at the scene.
“A driver was arrested at the scene” isn’t done as part of a routine - the police are required to have a suspicion about the driver in question before proceeding to an arrest. There’d just be too much wasted police time involved otherwise.
AT the scene, a driver being questioned might have their tacho checked, their vehicle roadworthiness checked, their licences checked, and get breathalysed as well. Failing in any of these areas might then lead to the arrest - but not before.
Members of the public might often say things like “I’m not answering any questions without my brief” - an attitude which sadly ends up being justified by the persistent inability of the police force to fill uniforms with above-average IQs it seems.
If the procedures are broken, they end up being followed to the letter. If any procedure happens to be fullproof, it will end up being too complicated to follow correctly, and cocked-up at every turn.
